Vietnamese American Youth Response to Viet Nam President's Visit to U.S.

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June 22, 2007


Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations

United Vietnamese Student Associations of Northern California

Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California

Vietnamese American Youth Alliance of San Diego

Phan Boi Chau Youth for Democracy

Len Duong Vietnamese Youth Network


Vietnamese American Youth Response to Viet Nam President's Visit to U.S.


California, June 22, 2007 – Today, the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations, the United Vietnamese Student Associations of Northern California, the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California, the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance of San Diego, Phan Boi Chau Youth for Democracy, and Len Duong Vietnamese Youth Network issued a collective statement in response to the U.S. visit of Viet Nam President Nguyen Minh Triet and to voice concern for on-going religious persecution, human rights violations, and political oppression taking place in Viet Nam.


President Triet is the latest and highest ranking Vietnamese government official to visit the United States with the expressed purpose of improving economic ties and increasing foreign investment to Viet Nam. Since diplomatic normalization, Viet Nam has gained significant bi-lateral trade with the United States, become a member of the World Trade Organization, hosted the Asian Pacific Economic Summit, and received Permanent Normal Trade Relation status from the United States Congress. Despite these economic advancements, the government has not made a good faith effort to raise the treatment of its citizens to international human rights standards, as it continues to harass, detain, and imprison - without cause or due process - democracy activists, religious leaders, political dissidents, and various other individuals who voiced opposition to government policies.



Recently, the government has intensified its crackdown on democracy activists and opposition voices by arresting members of a pro-democracy coalition and imprisoning individuals accused of propaganda to overthrow the people's government. Examples include Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest sentenced to eight years of jail time for his leadership role in calling for democracy in Viet Nam. Of particular concern is Mr. Nguyen's denial of an attorney or his ability to self-represent during trial. In another case, lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan, a member of an opposing political party in Viet Nam, was sentenced to jail for similar charges of propaganda against the people's government. Ms. Le was also tried in a closed-court session and was denied legal representation.



Today, despite economic developments, the current Vietnamese government has yet to recognize the fundamental rights of its citizens, including the right to have a free and independent press, the right to establish independent organizations and political parties, and the rights to due process with independent legal counsel and full legal representation.


In light of the current conditions inside Viet Nam, we, members of the Vietnamese American Youth Community, represented by the above-named organizations, hereby urge the current government of Viet Nam to:

Respect freedom and human rights for all Vietnamese citizens such as the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and others as enshrined in the Vietnamese Constitution;
Provide all citizens with due process, as established by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and reaffirmed by the United Nations Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment;
End religious persecution and allow for the operation of independent churches and temples; and
End all forms of oppression against ethnic minorities in Viet Nam.

We also urge the United States government to recognize these deficiencies as it negotiates trade and other policies with Viet Nam and to underscore their importance to establishing the growth of bilateral ties. We ask the federal government to continue its support for the Vietnamese people inside and outside the country in their struggle for human rights in Viet Nam.


We believe that if Viet Nam is to be an equal trade partner with other countries, the government must recognize the rights and freedom of its people as written in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Viet Nam is a signatory. Furthermore, the Vietnamese government is urged to allow open and fair elections with the participation of all political parties. Finally, we believe that if Vietnam is to continue bilateral trade with the rest of the world, it must uphold the values of the international community and respect human rights for all its citizens.


In Solidarity,


Hai Ton Huy Duong James Huy Vu

President, uNAVSA President, UVSA Nor Cal President, UVSA So Cal

www.uNAVSA.org www.NorCalUVSA. org www.THSV.org


Tri Nguyen My-Dung Tran Quoc Phan

President, VAYA President, PBC YFD Len Duong Vietnamese Youth Network

www.VAYASD.org www.DTNPBC.org www.LenDuong. net

U.S. lawmakers slam Vietnam president on human rights

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vietnam's president heard a barrage of criticism Thursday during his historic visit to Washington, with angry U.S. lawmakers saying ties between the former enemies will stagnate until Vietnam's dismal human-rights record improves.

Nguyen Minh Triet, the first president of the communist-led country to visit Washington since the Vietnam War, has tried to keep the focus on vibrant U.S.-Vietnam trade prospects. He is to meet Friday with President George W. Bush at the White House.

But during an hourlong private meeting, senior U.S. lawmakers repeatedly took Triet to task for claims by rights groups that Vietnam has recently ramped up repression of political activists and religious leaders, according to U.S. lawmakers at the meeting.

"Human rights was overwhelmingly the dominant issue. From start to finish, that was the theme," said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif. "We've got to see a stop to this conduct if this relationship is going to improve."

When asked about Triet's response, Royce answered: "Evasion."

Vietnam does not tolerate any challenge to the Communists' one-party rule; it insists, however, that only lawbreakers are jailed. In recent months, Vietnam has arrested or sentenced at least eight pro-democracy activists, including a dissident Roman Catholic priest who was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Triet told lawmakers that Vietnam "had lots of human rights, but the dissidents were somehow endangering the security of the country. We pressed hard for more information about exactly what that means."

Triet, in a speech to business leaders before the congressional meeting, avoided any mention of human rights. He urged more U.S. business investment in his fast-growing country and said his government was working hard to resolve difficulties some U.S. companies have experienced.

"We will do our best to help you," Triet told the audience. "We are striving to create a friendly business environment."

Triet said talk of the war was outdated. "Vietnam is peace. Vietnam is friendship. Vietnam is developing dynamically and creatively," he said through an interpreter.

He is leading a delegation of more than 100 Vietnamese businessmen. On Thursday, he signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States, which sometimes acts as a road map to eventual free trade negotiations.

The countries began a bilateral trade agreement in 2001; trade reached almost $10 billion last year.

Sherman Katz, a senior associate in international trade at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Vietnam has "got to be aware that part of the price of doing business with the United States, if you expect the U.S. government to help you, is to clean up some of these" human-rights problems.

Bush: Vietnam Must Commit To Human Rights To Boost US Ties

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- President George W. Bush lauded economic ties between the U.S. and Vietnam, but said Hanoi needs to strengthen human rights for relations to continue to improve.

After a meeting Friday with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet, Bush said, "We want to have good relations with Vietnam, and we've got good economic relations."

Triet is the first Vietnamese president to visit the U.S. since the Vietnam war ended in 1975.

"I also made it very clear that in order for relations to grow deeper that it's important for our friends to have a strong commitment to human rights and freedom and democracy," Bush added.

The U.S. and Vietnam signed a new trade and investment pact Thursday, a deal that lays out basic rules for trade and investment between the two countries and may be an early step toward a free trade agreement.

Two-way trade between the U.S. and Vietnam surged by 23% last year to $9.7 billion. Vietnam became the World Trade Organization's 150th member in January.

But the White House has expressed concern over a clampdown on democratic activity inside Vietnam, with a number of dissidents and political activists recently arrested.

"I explained my strong belief that societies are enriched when people are allowed to express themselves freely or worship freely," Bush said Friday.

Neither Bush nor Triet took questions after their meeting.

Triet said he and Bush are determined not to let differences over human rights and religion affect broader interests.

"Mr. President and I also had a direct and open exchange of views on a matter that we remain different, especially on matters related to religion and human rights," Triet said. "And our approach is that we would increase our dialogue in order to have a better understanding of each other."

The two men last met in November, when Bush traveled to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Second-Rate Welcome For Vietnam's Prez

Oxford Analytica 06.21.07

Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet's arrival yesterday in the United States marked the first visit by a Vietnamese head of state since 1975. Following the Vietnamese leader's tour through Los Angeles, New York and Washington, President George W. Bush will host Triet on June 22 for wide-ranging strategic and economic talks at the White House. However, administration officials recently downgraded aspects of the summit, due to renewed concerns over Hanoi's human rights record.

Bush visited Hanoi in November 2006. Washington did not formally invite Triet until early June. The delay was a calculated rebuke to Hanoi for the arrests and trials since March of seven dissident advocates of multi-party politics. Following Vietnam's successful entry into the WTO, the government has been less willing to defer to Western human rights concerns.

Washington and the European Union joined international human rights groups in sharply criticizing Hanoi this spring. This month, Bush hosted Vietnamese-American democracy activists at a highly unusual White House meeting to signal his displeasure. Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, the Democratic co-chair of the U.S.-Vietnam Caucus in the House of Representatives, resigned his caucus position and threw his support behind a resolution criticizing Vietnam's human rights practices.

To ease Western pressure and enable Triet's visit to go forward, Hanoi has released a handful of dissidents over the past two weeks. They include Le Quo Quan, arrested in March after returning from a brief academic fellowship in the United States, and Nguyen Vu Binh, a journalist. These gestures only partly mollified Washington. The Bush administration has refused to give Triet a state dinner and has shifted the signing ceremony for a key trade agreement from the White House to a lunch hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Bush has said publicly that he will discuss human rights issues with Triet during the June 22 White House meeting.

Triet and his delegation will likely encounter vocal, if polite, criticism when the congressional leadership greets them. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are both strong human rights advocates. Security for Triet's visit is also exceptionally tight because of anticipated protests by Vietnamese-American groups in both Washington and Los Angeles.

Trade relations are rapidly expanding between Washington and Hanoi. U.S.-Vietnam trade has more than quadrupled (to $9.7 billion per year in goods and services) since a bilateral trade agreement went into effect in 2001. To facilitate this trend, the two countries will sign a Trade and Investment Agreement (TIFA) on June 21, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The agreement represents a critical step toward negotiation of a U.S.-Vietnam free trade agreement.

The Triet delegation is also expected to confirm a number of lucrative business deals with U.S. firms. These include joint ventures between Chevron and Vietnam Petrochemical and between Microsoft and the Vietnamese Bank of Agriculture. The U.S. and Vietnamese Chambers of Commerce will also announce the establishment of formal ties. Lastly, Boeing hopes to conclude negotiations on another substantial aircraft order by Vietnam Airlines, even if a formal announcement does not occur during Triet's stay.

Triet's visit will further strengthen U.S.-Vietnamese ties, which have been driven forward by expanding bilateral trade and similar strategic concerns in Southeast Asia. While Congress and the Bush administration will continue to criticize Vietnam's human rights record, this is highly unlikely to result in curbs on trade.

Vietnamese President to Visit Amid Human Rights Criticism

(CNSNews.com) - With Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet scheduled to meet with President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) later this week, pro-democracy groups are urging that improved trade relations not overshadow human rights concerns.

More than three decades after the drawn-out and costly Vietnam War, relations between the U.S. and the communist-ruled Southeast Asian country have improved significantly in recent years. The 109th Congress late last year passed legislation granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to Hanoi ahead of its January 2007 accession to the World Trade Organization.

Also last year, the State Department removed Vietnam from a list of "countries of particular concern," blacklisted for egregious religious freedom violations. The department at the time reported "significant improvement towards advancing religious freedom."



Diem Do, chairman of Viet Tan, an opposition party that advocates democracy in Vietnam, said that since Hanoi achieved those goals, it "has stepped up its crackdown campaign with systematic arrests and imprisonment of pro-democracy activists who are peacefully expressing their views."

"We believe that trade by itself does not necessarily improve the lives of people under rogue regimes," Do told Cybercast News Service Tuesday. "Only when trade is consciously used to promote human rights could positive changes take place."

Viet Tan and other human rights groups are urging Bush and Pelosi to address the issue during Triet's visit.

"The president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Nguyen Minh Triet will want his visit to the United States to be all about business," said Do.

"They would hope that the world will turn a blind eye towards the recent gross human rights violations, however we believe that the issues of democracy and human rights oppressions will be raised with the Vietnamese government by President Bush and Speaker Pelosi," Do added.

A recent statement from the White House noted that "the United States and Vietnam have seen enormous progress in their relationship over the past several years."

"President Bush and President Triet will discuss our robust trade and economic relationship, cooperation on health and development issues, cultural and educational ties, and shared commitment to resolving remaining issues stemming from the war," the White House said.

The statement said that "President Bush will also express his deep concern over the recent increase of arrests and detentions of peaceful democracy activists in Vietnam, and note that such actions will inevitably limit the growth of bilateral ties."

While the Vietnamese Embassy did not return phone calls requesting comment for this article, Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S. Nguyen Tam Chien, said in a statement, "I strongly believe that the visit will be a success."

"The trip's outcomes will complete the full normalization of relations between Vietnam and the U.S. and usher in a new stage of cooperation between the two countries, where joint efforts will be made to set up long term cooperative ties," he added.

Do said he "would like to see the issue of CPC status be discussed and Vietnam to be put back on the list until religious prisoners are released and the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and other independent religious groups are free to practice their faiths."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) has also asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to place Vietnam back on the list of CPCs.

"Religious leaders and religiously motivated advocates have become prominent voices in Vietnam's dissident community," Royce said in a letter to Rice. "Many have founded free speech, democracy, and human rights organizations to argue for religious freedom, but improvements cannot be ensured without legal and political reforms."

Royce said returning Vietnam to the CPC list would send a clear message to Hanoi that human rights remain a serious concern.

"In addition, the CPC designation provides the State Department with a range of diplomatic options and incentives that may be used as the current crackdown on dissidents unfolds in Vietnam," he noted.

"Vietnam's continued suppression of political dissidents is intolerable if U.S.-Vietnam relations are to advance," Royce added.

Daniella Markheim, a senior trade policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, told Cybercast News Service she does not believe there will be "immediate trade sanctions or restrictions" on Vietnam.

"Generally, the U.S. will exhaust all other channels - diplomatic, cultural, etc. - before resorting to trade sanctions as a response to the violations that recommend or place a country on the CPC list," she said.

Countries currently on the CPC list are Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Burma and Eritrea.

SANCHEZ, PELOSI MEET WITH PRO-DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES IN ADVANCE OF MEETING WITH PRESIDENT OF VIETNAM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in meeting with pro-democracy advocates in anticipation of President Nguyen Minh Triet’s visit to Capitol Hill on June 21. Triet is scheduled to meet separately with Speaker Pelosi and President Bush. The congresswomen were joined by Diem Do of the Viet Tan Party, Bich Nguyen of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans and the Venerable Thich Giac Duc who expressed their grave concerns with Vietnam’s oppressive human rights record.

Sanchez and Pelosi have led congressional efforts in bringing attention to the recent escalation of human rights violations in Vietnam which include: the sentencing of 8 years in prison for Father Nguyen Van Ly, the arrests of human rights attorneys Nguyen Van Dai, Le Thi Cong Nhan and Le Quoc Quan; and the unmet medical needs of incarcerated journalist Nguyen Vu Binh. Nearly 200 people are thought to have been held without trial, including the Venerable Thich Quang Do and Thich Huyen Quang, leaders of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

“We have worked very closely with these leaders in bringing national attention to the situation in Vietnam,” said Sanchez. “We wanted to give the Vietnamese community an opportunity to share their concerns before the Speaker’s meeting with President Triet tomorrow.”

“It is my hope that human rights will be a topic of discussion for President Bush’s meeting with Triet. Human rights must play an integral part in shaping our country’s bilateral relationship with Vietnam.”

Sanchez, co-founder of the Vietnam Caucus, recently celebrated the release of Nguyen Vu Binh, a Vietnamese democracy activist who was charged with a seven year prison term. In February, Sanchez wrote a letter to Secretary Condoleezza Rice who subsequently made a similar request to the Government of Vietnam. Le Quoc Quan, a fellow of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, nominated by Sanchez, was released over the weekend and reunited with his family after the tireless work of the Vietnamese community and government officials.

Rumored visit has Little Saigon abuzz

June 19, 2007
Times Staff Writer, By Mike Anton / Times Staff Writer

...Triet would become the first president of Vietnam to visit the United States since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. He would meet President...1975 that never stopped," he added. Vietnam has improved relations with the United States... / Times Staff Writer

News travels fast in Orange County's Little Saigon. So do rumors. The hottest one began coursing through the community a couple of months ago.

Word was Nguyen Minh Triet would become the first president of Vietnam to visit the United States since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. He would meet President Bush at the White House in late June and travel to California. He might even stop in Little Saigon.

This raised the collective blood pressure of a community where the war is still being fought. More rumors followed: Triet had canceled the trip. The trip was back on. He would stop in Los Angeles but not come to Little Saigon.

"Two hours ago, I got a call from a source in Hanoi," Thai Dinh, who hosts a talk show on Little Saigon Radio, said last week. "He will be in Orange County about 11 a.m. Saturday…. It will be a very quiet visit. He knows if he announced that, he'd be faced with thousands and thousands of people protesting."

Triet's trip and his scheduled meeting Friday with Bush — largely unnoticed by most Americans — has been the talk of Little Saigon for weeks. Every dollop of information is scrutinized by the competitive Vietnamese-language media — three daily newspapers, dozens of weekly publications, two TV channels, a half-dozen radio stations.

At least two committees have been formed to marshal a response should Triet come to Little Saigon.

The ubiquitous chatter underscores how information ricochets through Little Saigon like it does in any small town. Secrets are hard to keep here, even if they are state secrets.

"I'm in government, work on foreign affairs, and I didn't hear anything about [President Triet's trip] until I heard it from people in the community," said Khoi Ta, an aide to U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, whose district encompasses part of the nation's largest Vietnamese American enclave.

"It's part of one long discussion that started in 1975 that never stopped," he added.

Vietnam has improved relations with the United States in recent years, in part by releasing dissidents and loosening restrictions on religious freedoms leading up to Bush's visit last November to Hanoi.

Since then, there's been tension over the arrest of pro-democracy advocates. White House officials said Bush plans to urge Triet to continue to improve the country's human rights record and implement economic reforms.

"Vietnam has come a long way, but there is still more to be done to protect the rights of its people," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Michael Green, who served as Bush's senior advisor on Asian affairs at the NSC until 2005, said Vietnam is eager to improve relations with the United States for both economic and strategic reasons.

"Basically, the Vietnamese want to keep momentum going in the relationship, and that helps them become a modern country," Green said.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has touted Triet's meeting with Bush and congressional leaders as evidence of closer ties. However, details of his visit to Southern California haven't been released, and Vietnam's embassy in Washington did not return a phone call Monday.

Visiting Vietnamese government officials have long stirred passions in Little Saigon, where the flag of a country that no longer exists — South Vietnam — is revered.

In 2002, a Vietnamese trade delegation was stalked by angry protesters who forced them to cancel a meeting and abandon their hotel. Two years later, Communist Party leaders scrapped a motorcade through Little Saigon after police said they couldn't ensure their safety. They came to Orange County, but quietly.

Westminster and Garden Grove passed ordinances opposing visits of Vietnamese government officials and requesting the State Department to give advance notice if one should occur.

"It would be like Osama bin Laden visiting New York City," Westminster Councilman Andy Quach said of the prospect that Triet would come to Little Saigon. "Our sources say he's keeping his plans top secret…. Unless they make it an issue, we won't."

Yet the no-Communist zone ordinances are more symbolic than enforceable.

Vietnamese officials routinely come to Little Saigon, mostly for private meetings to discuss burgeoning trade between the two nations.

When they do, a cat-and-mouse game plays out behind the scenes.

"Anything that buzzes around here — let me tell you, it gets around," said Diem Do, chairman of Vietnam Reform Party, one of several anti-Communist groups active in Little Saigon.

When Vietnam's foreign minister visited Los Angeles in March, the location of an unpublicized meeting with businessmen was moved repeatedly and invitees told where to go just hours in advance, Do said.

A month later, word spread that a group of men — clearly outsiders — were scouting potential venues for Triet if he came to Little Saigon.

"The leadership of Vietnam largely comes from the country's north and they have a different accent, a different demeanor," Do said. "When they walk into some place like the Asian Garden Mall, people's radar goes up. Call it intuition. But people can easily spot these folks and these things always leak out."

On Monday, Do said the latest word was Triet will host a brunch Saturday morning in south Orange County, miles from Little Saigon. He will then meet with Vietnamese American businessmen in Irvine and Santa Ana. By afternoon, the location had changed to Newport Beach.

Apparently Triet won't come to Little Saigon after all.

"But that's not set in stone," Do said, noting it was early in the week. "That may change."

Indigenous peoples of Vietnam, the Degar Montagnards, ask President Bush to bring up their persecution with visiting Vietnamese leader Triet

Hundreds of Degar Montagnards gathered in Washington, DC on June 16 to ask President George W. Bush to remember them in his upcoming discussion with Vietnamese leader Nguyen Minh Triet who will visit the White House next week. (Lisa Fan / The Epoch Times)

Twelve bus loads of Degar Montagnards arrived outside Lafayette Square across from the White House at about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 16. Some 700, dressed in white shirts with Montagnard Foundation logos, they walked in orderly fashion carrying Montagnard and U.S. flags and signs. The signs said, "President Bush Remember us" and "Vietnam stop killing Degar Christians."

Outside the White House they gathered in the street and lined up to make an impressive site. Kids as young as three or four stood with their parents. Soon some Cambodians of the Kymer Campuchia came and joined them and the crowd stretched down the street.

There was a band of Degar Montagnards (French for 'mountain dwellers') dressed in loin clothes and traditional clothes carrying gongs and large drum like instruments, in the same fashion they have done for thousands of years. A group of women in traditional dress also held hands and danced to the beat of the drums and ancient gongs.

Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation, addressed the crowd and made a plea to President Bush followed by a mass prayer vigil.

"We, the proud indigenous Degar Montagnard people as members of the Montagnard Foundation stand here today in front of the White House to speak publicly on behalf of our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution inside Vietnam. We are here to ask President George W. Bush to remember us in his upcoming discussions with Vietnamese [leader] Nguyen Minh Triet who is visiting the White House next week and also for the Vietnamese [leader] to cease his government from persecuting our people."

During the long Vietnam War, an estimated 100,000 Montagnards served with the U.S. military and by the end of the war over a quarter of our population, over 200,000 people had died, including half of all adult males being killed, according to Ksor. He described what happened to his people when the communist took over Vietnam in 1975.

"…the communists enacted a brutal revenge against our race, killing or imprisoning our leaders and Christian pastors in brutal re-education camps. Ever since, the Vietnamese government has continued land exploitation, Christian persecution, torture, killings and imprisonment of our people. The communist regime in Hanoi continues today to torture and kill our house church Christians who resist joining the 'official' church. Hundreds of our people remain in prison for peacefully demonstrating for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia. Many of our prisoners have been specifically beaten to cause a slow death from internal injuries."

Ksor next described the extra security measures the communists Vietnamese use in the central highlands on the Montagnards: "surveillance, arrests, beatings, electric shock torture, imprisonment and murder."

As I filmed and watched the crowd, directly in front of me the entire group of 700 plus Montagnards prayed. A number of Montagnards started crying. I recall one young man who looked to me in his late 20s was wiping away his tears, crying while he was trying to pray and the scene really hit me. I thought: "These are the people the Vietnamese [regime] tortures and kills." I thought of the torture victims who were electric shocked that I had interviewed in the past and the ones describing how their relatives were beaten or imprisoned.

I could also see some ex-Green berets too in the crowd. One guy Joe Rimar wearing his green beret stood with the Montagnard group. He was carrying a loin clothe he was given by Montagnards during the Vietnam war.

Around noon the crowd moved out to 17th Street and made its way to Constitutional Ave. I was in the front and watched hundreds of Montagnards crossing streets, carrying flags and banners as people in cars all looked over and watched in amazement.

Near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the Montagnards dispersed into the trees. They then made their way over towards the Wall and spread out. Crowds leaving the Vietnam Wall memorial all stood at the fence, reading the banners and many asked questions from those near the fence. A number of veterans and various people from all age groups appeared supportive.

At the Wall, Kok Ksor spoke again, this time about the sacrifice Americans made in Vietnam.

"As we stand here we can see the names of 58,000 Americans on the black marble of the Vietnam Wall memorial who died for freedom in Southeast Asia. We pay tribute to them and pray for their souls and pray that their sacrifice was not in vain. We the Degar Montagnard people still have hope that the ultimate sacrifice made by these Americans will one day bring true democracy and freedom to Vietnam..."

A prayer vigil again was done and hundreds of Montagnard prayed in their tribal languages. They also chanted "President Bush remember us" and the tribal band circled around the park banging their gongs. The group then disbanded and boarded their buses around 4 p.m.

Scott Johnson is an advisor to the Montagnard Foundation.

Vietnamese leader to get an earful of rights complaints in US by P. Parameswaran

Sun Jun 17,

Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet is expected to get an earful of human rights complaints when he makes his maiden visit to the United States this week despite a last-minute release of a couple of imprisoned activists.

The concerns are to be conveyed to him by President George W. Bush's administration as well as leaders from the Democratic party-controlled Congress during his June 18-23 trip, officials said.

Some groups have linked the Vietnamese leader's pardoning last week of Nguyen Vu Binh, 39, a journalist and pro-democracy activist, and the release at the weekend of pro-democracy lawyer Le Quoc Quan, 36, as a fence-mending gesture ahead of the landmark visit.

"We leave it to the government of Vietnam to explain the reasons for their decisions. We have raised cases, we will continue to raise cases and we often raise human rights issues with the highest levels of the Vietnamese government," a State Department official told AFP.

"Obviously, we welcome that (the release) and we continue to call on the government of Vietnam to release everyone else currently in detention and in prison because of peaceful expression of their political views," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Triet is scheduled to arrive in New York and on Friday meet Bush at the White House during a visit hailed by both sides at cementing diplomatic and economic ties between the ex-battlefield enemies.

Vietnamese-American pro-democracy groups are planning large protests outside the White House when the two leaders meet.

Bilateral relations soured this year when Vietnam reimposed a crackdown on pro-democracy activists and dissidents after winning entry into the World Trade Organization in January.

The membership in the global trade body preceded US Congressional approval to the Bush administration to normalize trade ties with the rapidly-growing Southeast Asian state with a condition that human rights come under continued scrutiny.

The Congress was given an undertaking that Vietnam was serious about polishing its human rights record "but now we know that it is a total lie and it is important to shake the administration on this issue," said Ed Royce (news, bio, voting record), a lawmaker from Bush's Republican party.

The US government has received a deluge of letters from various organizations complaining about Hanoi's human rights record ahead of Trient's visit, officials said.

Among them was global rights watchdog Amnesty International, which urged Bush to "deliver a strong and clear message to the government of Vietnam that their mistreatment of citizens is unacceptable to the United States," said its Asia-Pacific advocacy director, T. Kumar.

Bush would voice his concerns to Triet, a White House spokesperson has said.

In a bid to underscore concerns about repression in Vietnam, Bush met with four Vietnamese-American democracy advocates about two weeks ago.

"As Vietnam's economy and society reform and move forward, such repression of individuals for their views is anachronistic and out of keeping with Vietnam's desire to prosper, modernize, and take a more prominent role in world affairs," national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

But the Vietnamese President, in an interview with American newspapers ahead of his visit, defended his crackdown and dispelled any notion that Vietnam was against human rights.

"Vietnam has experienced war and understands well the loss of human rights and freedom," he told The New York Times. "Therefore, we really love the fundamental rights of man and respect human rights. But if anyone violates the law we have to punish them."

But Diem H. Do, chairman of Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group active in Vietnam, charged that Triet was trying to separate political freedom from business to the dismay of a growing grassroots democracy movement.

"As long as the Hanoi communist government stifles peaceful dissent at home, the leaders of the regime will be protested wherever they go abroad by Vietnamese who have the liberty to speak up," he said.

Hanoi releases a third detainee on U.S. list

Sat Jun 16

Authorities on Saturday released a lawyer who was on a U.S. list of activists detained this year by Vietnam, two days before President Nguyen Minh Triet goes to the United States on a state visit.

The Vietnam News Agency reported that Le Quoc Quan, 36, who was detained in March after returning to Vietnam from a five-month fellowship in the United States, was released to his family in Hanoi.

He "made sincere declaration of guilt during his temporary detention for investigation" the official news agency said.

It said Quan had been held in "temporary custody for violating Vietnamese law" but provided no further details.

Last weekend, Triet granted amnesty to Nguyen Vu Binh, a 39-year-old former Communist Party magazine journalist who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and three years probation in May 2004 on charges of spying.

In May, a former policeman in the pre-1975 U.S.-backed South Vietnam was released and left for the United States after serving 22 years of a life sentence. Phan Van Ban 70, had been found guilty of treason in 1985.

The United States has for months called for the release of several activists and people put on trial and jailed for "spreading propaganda against the state." They have included lawyers, a priest and small businessmen.

Communist Party-ruled Vietnam does not tolerate political opposition outside of its supervision. It said the seven people jailed since March for between three to eight years broke the law.

Western human rights groups have decried the arrests and trials as "a crackdown on dissent," a charge Hanoi rejects.

Triet will be the first post-war communist Vietnam head of state to visit the United States since the end of the war in 1975. He is scheduled to start his visit in New York on Monday and he will meet President George W. Bush in the White House on June 22. He will also go to Los Angeles.

Vietnam frees dissident ahead of president's US visit by Frank Zeller

Sun Jun 10, 3:54 AM ET

Vietnam has freed a key political dissident less than two weeks before the first US visit by a post-war Vietnamese head of state, a prison official and state media said Sunday.

Nguyen Vu Binh, a 39-year-old journalist and so-called "cyber dissident," was released Saturday afternoon and allowed to return to his Hanoi home, the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said.

It said President Nguyen Minh Triet had on Friday "granted amnesty to a man who was serving a jail term for spying."

It named him as Binh, who was arrested in September 2002, jailed for seven years and given three years' house arrest.

An official on duty at Nam Ha prison, about 50 kilometres (35 miles) south of the capital Hanoi, who declined to give his name, confirmed to AFP that Binh was released on Saturday.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem had indicated during a visit to the US in March that the communist government could free Binh, whom supporters and human rights groups said had been in poor health.

Since then, several dissident trials in Vietnam leading to lengthy jail terms have raised tensions with Washington ahead of Triet's meeting with US President George W. Bush, scheduled for June 22.

During Triet's visit, the former enemy nations are expected to sign a framework agreement toward a free trade pact between the superpower and Vietnam, East Asia's fastest growing economy after China.

Binh, a former journalist with the official Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Journal), was accused of links with prominent Vietnamese dissidents such as Pham Hong Son, now under house arrest in Hanoi.

He had also planned to create an alternative political party, taken part in an anti-corruption group and criticised a 1999 Vietnam-China border treaty in an online essay, saying Vietnam had ceded land to the northern neighbour.

Relatives said recently Binh's health had deteriorated due to liver disease and other ailments to the extent where he could not lift his five-year-old daughter, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The VNA report Sunday said that Binh had written a letter asking for clemency and expressed "his wish to be reunited with his family and (that he) pledged to fully exercise his rights and obligations as a citizen."

The state media report also said Binh had "thanked the Nam Ha prison management for their care while he was serving his sentence there."

Vietnam, which has drawn US and EU protests for jailing several key activists for "disseminating propaganda against the state" this year, says it does not punish people for their political views, only for breaking the law.

Human rights questions have soured otherwise blossoming relations between the United States and Vietnam, which re-established diplomatic ties in 1995, two decades after the fall of Saigon, and have since become major trading partners.

Triet, who arrives in New York on June 18 with a major business delegation, is expected to oversee with Bush the signing of a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, according to Vietnamese state media.

The landmark US visit had been in some doubt after Bush recently met with a group of four exiled Vietnamese pro-democracy activists.

Last week a White House statement said Bush and Triet would discuss trade and economic ties, cooperation on health, development, cultural and educational ties, and resolving remaining issues stemming from the war.

But it added that Bush would also "express his deep concern over the recent increase of arrests and detentions of peaceful democracy activists in Vietnam and note that such actions will inevitably limit the growth of bilateral ties."

One foreign diplomat in Vietnam, speaking on condition of anonymity on Sunday, called Binh's release "a concession to the United States before the visit of Triet, which had been in real jeopardy."

Bush to press Vietnam on arrests of dissidents By Caren Bohan

Thu Jun 7,

President George W. Bush will warn Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet later this month that Hanoi's recent crackdown on political dissidents could hurt its trade ties with the United States.

Triet is to visit Washington on June 22, marking the first such visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam in 1975.

"The United States and Vietnam have seen enormous progress in their relationship over the past several years," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino in a statement issued from Germany where Bush is attending the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

The leaders will discuss their "robust trade and economic relationship" as well as cultural and other ties, Perino said.

But she added: "President Bush will also express his deep concern over the recent increase of arrests and detentions of peaceful democracy activists in Vietnam, and note that such actions will inevitably limit the growth of bilateral ties."

After a Vietnam court on May 11 sentenced two activist lawyers to up five years in jail, the White House criticized an increasing number of arrests of dissidents and said they were out of character with Vietnam's recent modernization.

Triet is making his U.S. trip to reciprocate a state visit by Bush to the communist-run country last November around the time of an Asia-Pacific summit in Hanoi. He is expected to face protests in support of Vietnam's tiny dissident community.

Vietnam and the United States established diplomatic relations in 1995 and friendly ties are largely founded on trade and business.

Hanoi rejects accusations by Western human rights groups that it has cracked down on activists after it successfully hosted the APEC summit, won World Trade Organization membership and was removed from a U.S. religious rights blacklist in 2006.

In a speech to a democracy forum in Prague on Tuesday, Bush mentioned Vietnam, among a list of many other countries, including Cuba, Egypt and Venezuela, where he was concerned about the treatment of political dissidents.

Vietnam's War on Dissent Goes Public

When police came to Nguyen Van Dai's door on Feb. 8, the Vietnamese human rights lawyer thought he was in for an ordinary questioning session. He was certainly used to them, having been called in by police at least a dozen times for running educational seminars on democracy, which authorities said threatened national security. But this time, it was different. Dai was taken to his local People's Committee, where about 200 murmuring citizens were waiting to denounce him for his crimes against society. One by one, the audience, mostly elderly, came to the microphone to speak — sometimes heatedly. "He has spread half-truths and negative information about Vietnam," one man said accusatorily in footage that was later shown on national television. Another, according to Dai's own account, declared he could no longer control his outrage at the "traitor" and rushed toward Dai shouting, "I'm so angry, I want to choke him!" Police pulled the attacker away and handed the microphone to the next speaker.

Dai's tale sounds like a recollection from the old Vietnam, back when the Communist Party ruled nearly every aspect of citizens' lives and public denunciations were used routinely to keep dissenters in line. About a dozen dissidents have been arrested or exiled in what human rights grups call Vietnam's harshest political crackdown in 20 years. Of these, at least four have endured public humiliation ceremonies. "They want to frighten us," Dai explains. "They use the people and our neighbors to try to shame us, so they don't have to use the courts." Not that the courts are off-limits. Soon after sitting down for a mid-February interview with TIME to describe his denunciation session, Dai was arrested; on May 11, after a one-day trial, he was sentenced to five years in prison for "spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic."

Whereas in the past couple of decades Vietnam's government would often conduct the trials of its opponents relatively low-key, the latest wave of denunciations and arrests have been anything but. Indeed, they seem to have been stepped up in response to a resurgent pro-democracy movement and, for the first time, publicized in state media. Foreign and local journalists have been allowed to attend the open trials, while the state-controlled media has run lengthy screeds against the defendants. The shift in strategy is in some ways a reflection of a changing Vietnam. Nearly 60% of the population of 85 million is under 30 years old; they are increasingly Internet-literate, eager to join the global community and able to access news and information from the outside world. There's no point in downplaying a political crackdown because people will find out about it anyway, according to Martin Gainsborough, a political scientist and Vietnam expert at the University of Bristol in the U.K. Instead, the government is trying "to continually remind the public that these people are beyond the pale," Gainsborough says. "They need to keep the dissidents and the majority of citizens apart." The overall message: that activists are criminals, not dissidents — and that they are threatening Vietnam's stability.

At the same time, however, officials are working hard to convince ordinary Vietnamese that their system is actually becoming more open and democratic. Hanoi may soon announce the results of its May 20 National Assembly elections, touted as a democratic exercise because the government actively encouraged pre-screened "self-nominated" candidates to run. In February, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung held an unprecedented online chat with ordinary citizens, in which he frankly answered questions on the economy and press censorship. Meanwhile, state media have published lengthy articles criticizing multi-party "Western-style" democracy as messy and debilitating, while trumpeting the "Vietnamese style" of one-party rule as a guarantor of wealth and peace. "They're saying, 'This is how we do democracy, and it's a really good process... and it's something to be proud of,'" says Gainsborough. Dai, who told TIME before his arrest that he found many members of Vietnam's younger generation hungry for democratic change, would disagree. He pointed out that most of the accusers at his denouncement ceremony were over 60, many of them veterans of what's known here as the American War. "The reason [authorities] didn't invite young people is, they fear they would have laughed at the process," he said.

But while the crackdown on dissidents has been condemned internationally, there's been little public outrage at home. Right now, life has never looked better for most Vietnamese: the economy has grown by more than 7% a year over the past decade, second in Asia only to China's, and this year's entry into the World Trade Organization has touched off a flood of foreign investment. A 2006 Gallup International survey called Vietnam the world's most optimistic country for the fourth year in a row, with 94% of urban residents predicting life would improve in 2007. As long as the government keeps delivering healthy economic growth, says Carl Thayer, a political scientist at Australia's National Defence Academy who has studied the country for more than 30 years, "there's not going to be a revolt from below in Vietnam." Nevertheless, while Vietnamese can make money, cast ballots and even chat with the prime minister online, questioning the Communist Party's hold on power can still mean being sent to prison. And anyone who does so may first face a roomful of angry denouncers first.